


Bugs and Their Larva

by Jordan_Marine



Series: Chasing Down the Gods [3]
Category: The Talon Saga - Julie Kagawa
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Gen, Injury Recovery, Redemption, Secrets, continuation of Dante having a bullet in his spine, i'm just trying to tie up some of the loose ends that I left y'all in the last installment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2019-12-29 21:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18301985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jordan_Marine/pseuds/Jordan_Marine
Summary: Dante had been out of Talon for six weeks. In that time, he had learned of secrets that Talon kept from him, made more friends than he thought possible, and cut his final ties with Talon. He was a rogue now— no going back. He felt like a different person. One that was free from his past mistakes.But the past has a way of catching up on you.





	1. Dante

**Author's Note:**

> I was aiming to get this out by March, and March 31st counts. I have met my deadline. 
> 
> So, who's ready for part THREE of Dante's redemption arc through serious injury, kidnapping, and moral crisis? This time, with karma. Right now, there are only four chapters, but I know of at least one scene that needs to be added, so updates might come fairly slowly. Still, it's something, right?
> 
> I've made this promise before, and I will make it again: I promise not to kill Dante. The longer this series goes on, the more you guys probably distrust this promise, because that doesn't stop me from doing anything else. But it's all I have to give.

Dante supposed that, on some level, he expected things to change.

He had gone back to into Talon, into the lab that he had poured the last few months of his life into. He had completed the mission without a single urge to betray the underground. He had sealed his fate with Talon, and he accepted it. Any loyalty to Talon was finally put to rest. He had worked with a soldier of St. George and a basilisk who had stabbed him in the back. The soldier of St. George had nearly  _ died  _ for him. He had seen someone die for the first time; a  _ real  _ person, not a vessel. Even if that person had been Lilith, and she had tried to kill him, the shock of it had ripped at his core.

He had been welcomed back a hero.

He had had his one last secret ripped from his chest, and there was no way to stop it from being exposed.

So much had happened. It seemed like when he woke up, the world would be irreversibly changed.  _ He  _ would be changed.

And yet, that was  _ not  _ the case.

“Oh my God…” Dante groaned, cracking his eyes open. Sunlight filtered in through the window, painfully bright. He tried to move shield his face only for his shoulder to seize up. His back was  _ burning,  _ all the way from the base of his spine to his neck. Every breath ached. He couldn’t quite locate his legs, other than the hazy feeling of pins and needles below his tailbone.

Apparently, it didn’t matter how significant the mission was. A bullet to the spine was a bullet to the spine, and hauling a mostly-dead soldier who was at least six inches taller than him through a mineshaft wasn’t going to end well for him.

“Hey, Tweedledum,” Ember’s voice said from somewhere to his side. Dante turned his head— even  _ that  _ hurt— and caught her eye. She grimaced, in the way that she used to every time he got sick when they were younger. 

“Ugh.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” she replied. She sat down next to him. “Wes told me that you probably overexerted yourself yesterday. He explained exactly what was wrong in detail, but I understood absolutely  _ none  _ of it, and he’s currently passed out in his room, so all that you need to know is that you’re not allowed to get out of bed without a back brace for the next twenty-four hours.”

“I have no intentions to move at all,” Dante said. He tried to move his feet, just to make sure that he  _ could,  _ but all that he got was more pain. Well, at least he could  _ feel  _ his legs. Vaguely.

Actually, it would probably be a mercy if he  _ couldn't  _ feel them for the next twenty-four hours.

“Cheer up, Dante.” Ember hit his shoulder lightly. “At least I’m allowed into this room. Sage didn’t want to let me in, but your friends decided that it was better that I be the one to keep you company.  _ And,  _ just to make your day better, Wes got you painkillers. They’re really weak, but they’ll take the edge off.”

Dante sighed. “Thank God.”

Ember shook out a few pills into her hand and counted them out. “Who’s your favorite sister?”

“You’re my  _ only  _ sister. Now give me the—”

“Who’s your favorite sister?”

“Ember, please just—”

“Who’s your favorite sister?”

“This is blackmail!”

Ember laughed. She didn’t bother trying to sit him upright or to give him the chance to take the painkillers himself. She just shoved them directly into his mouth. Dante made a weak protest from the back of his throat, but truth be told, he doubted that he could get his arms to work. He dry-swallowed the pills before Ember could try to give him any water. He still had his pride, and he didn’t want to end up with his shirt soaking wet.

“Reminds me of old times,” Dante said after a few minutes of waiting for painkillers to kick in. They  _ were  _ weak. Too weak to even touch the pain in his back. But his shoulders didn’t ache when he moved them, and his legs were a bit more hazy in his awareness. He couldn’t tell whether or not that was a good thing.

“Six weeks was not  _ old times,  _ Dante,” Ember snorted. 

“I don’t know… a lot has happened in six weeks,” Dante said. “It’s hard to process, really, how quickly everything changed. And I’ve really only been lucid for three weeks.”  _ That  _ was honestly harder to believe than the fact that he had been gone for six weeks. It felt like a lifetime ago, that he was trying to visit the Archivist. It also felt unbelievably fast.

“Sometimes, I still think that I’m going to wake up in my apartment.”

“You had an  _ apartment? _ ” Ember asked, incredulous. “They trusted you to be left to your own for extended periods of time?  _ Damn.  _ And here we thought the Elder Wyrm was intelligent.”

“Oh, come on. You act like  _ you _ were the responsible one out of the two of us.”

“I might not have possessed any time management skills or an ability to pay attention, but at least I didn’t forget to eat, or try to hide scale rot until I got a blood infection, or… you went to work with strep throat didn’t you? You told me about that.”

“I did do that.”

“Yeah, I’ve  _ never  _ tried to hide a major illness. When the doctors gave me my shots, I didn’t try to put it off for three months. You shouldn’t be allowed to have an apartment by yourself.”

“I did fine…” Dante muttered. It was a lie. His apartment had been a bed, a counter, and his hoard of rocks that he had found in the desert. He barely ever spent time in it, going as far as to sleep in his office. He had thrown himself into Talon without any thought other than proving himself and making it to the top, consequences be damned.

People were calling him a  _ hero,  _ after blowing up that lab, while ignoring that he had been the one to help build that program.

A chill came over Dante. He hadn’t thought badly of the vessel project at first— sure, it felt unnatural, but so did Viper suits and everything involving old magic. But after everything that had happened in the underground, the idea of an army of soldiers who couldn’t say no to orders or think for themselves was terrifying. And the fact that  _ he  _ was a vessel was still incomprehensible.

But the lab was gone, now. He had made sure of that. He could put it all behind him.

“What are you thinking about, Tweedledum?” Ember asked.

Dante blinked and pulled himself out of his thoughts. Ember had a concerned crease in her brow that he still wasn’t used to seeing. He wasn’t sure if he was proud or sad that she had taken so much responsibility while he was gone.

“I… think that I just realized that I’m not built for independent living,” he said. The furrow in Ember’s brow smoothed out, and she smirked slightly. “The months where I was alone in Talon were  _ very  _ unhealthy… holy shit. You might actually be part of my common sense filter. That is is  _ incredibly  _ concerning. I’m really lucky to have you back. And… I’m sorry that it took so long. A lot could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t been an idiot.”

“Hey, don’t be hard on yourself.” Ember punched his shoulder. Dante winced. She was so much stronger than she used to be. “You’ve been doing really well with all of this. I know that this definitely wasn’t an easy way to go rogue. And… I also know that the mission was tough. You did as well as you could.”

Dante sighed, trying to move his arm to rub at his eyes and failing to do anything more than raise it a few inches off of his cot. With any luck, and mercy on Mist’s part, no one would know about the Night of Fang and Fire until  _ after  _ he could stand by himself.

He still remembered when Cobalt called all of the hatchlings into the living room and told them that any infighting with the soldiers would lead to a one-way ticket to the nearest town with no exceptions. Exile from the only safe haven in the Western Hemisphere. Dante didn’t know if the same fate would await him, but if it did, he wanted to be able to move by himself. It would give him half a fighting chance.

God. He  _ really  _ didn’t want to leave. He didn’t know that it was possible to get attached to a place in such a short amount of time.

“I just wish it hadn’t taken me so long,” Dante said softly. A soft silence came between them, only interrupted by the noises downstairs. He had never seen so many dragons in the same place, but the way they interacted, it made him feel that this was how dragons were  _ supposed  _ to live. They were communal at heart, no matter how much Talon tried to deny it.

“How’s St. Anthony?” Dante asked. From the last update Ember gave him before he went to bed, the soldier was unresponsive, and remained comatose without any drugs in his system. “Any updates?”

“There is, actually,” Ember said, eyes brightening a bit. “Garret texted me two hours ago, that Tristan’s hand was twitching for a while. He’s still not conscious, but they think it could be a response to the pain, which would mean that he’s more in limbo than actually comatose. They’re hoping that he’ll wake up soon. It might not even last twenty-four hours.  _ And,  _ for an added bonus, it was the hand that Lilith stabbed. The fact that he can move it means that he’ll be able to actually use it. Maybe not as well as he could before, but…” she shrugged. “A damn  _ chapel  _ fell on him during the Night of Fang and Fire, and he survived. He’ll be able to get through this.”

Dante cringed. That was his fault.

“Really, Dante. He’s going to be okay,” Ember said. “And… even if he isn’t  _ completely  _ okay, he’s alive, and he’s alive because you got him out. That counts for something.”

“Yeah…” Dante sighed. “Just wish it hadn’t come down to me or him.”

“We both do.”

“You must really mean something to him,” Dante said. Ember furrowed her brow. “Ember, he was willing to  _ die  _ for me. He doesn’t even know me, other than a guy who worked for Talon and went Rogue a few weeks ago,  _ and _ the guy who just so happens to be your brother. You obviously have some sort of impact on him.”

Something passed over Ember’s face, dark and vaguely uncomfortable. But she hid it with a grimace in less than a second.

“I’m dating his best friend, so we’ve had quite a few conversations over the past weeks. The ‘ _ welcome to the family, don’t hurt him’  _ and  _ ‘these are how to deal with his night terrors’  _ and… I actually did talk about you a lot. You were on my mind pretty often. He’s a surprisingly thoughtful listener.”

“All good things?” Dante mustered up a smirk.

“Sure. Whatever you want to think,” Ember snorted. Dante rolled his shoulders and tried to force himself onto his elbows. Ember winced and moved to support him, a hand going under his back, right where his vertebrae had been hit. It burned through his entire spine and into his ribs at the contact, but Dante managed to prop himself up, even if his arms were shaking from the effort.

“Take it easy on yourself, Dante,” Ember warned softly. “There’s a reason that Wes told you not to walk anywhere without a brace.” She paused. “He’s still surprised that you managed to haul Tristan out at all. He’s, like, nine inches taller than you and over fifty pounds heavier.”

“I did it through pure terror,” Dante replied. “Besides, you’ve probably done crazier.”

“I… have indeed,” Ember cringed slightly. “Yeah, I don’t think that either of us are built for independent living. It’s just a bad idea all around. I should have just… dragged you to our meeting with Riley back in Crescent Beach.”

“You could’ve  _ tried _ .”

“I would’ve succeeded, tweedledum. I was trained to be a  _ Viper.  _ I could carry your scrawny, Chameleon ass with one arm. I could  _ punt  _ you.”

“Please don’t.”

“Throw you like a sack of flour.”

“ _ Please  _ don’t.”

The door opened. Dante stiffened further as Mist walked in and shut the door behind her, eyes scanning the room before she gave a smile to Ember. Her eyes didn’t once meet his. 

Dante knew that, logically, he wasn’t supposed to be upset over that. He and Mist had never been friends, even while they were in Talon; they had spoken for maybe two hours total before she went rogue. But he  _ did _ care about what she thought of him. He cared about what she’d tell Ember. He could go through with losing his friends. He had accepted that as best as he could in twelve hours. But he couldn’t stand the thought of having his sister hate him.

“Hey,” she said to Ember. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m not the one who just blew up a Talon laboratory,” she replied. If it weren’t for the fact that could still barely feel his legs, Dante would take his leave. He didn’t want to be in the room when Mist told her the news. He also didn’t want to be stuck in an awkward pre-conversation that he was quite obviously not invited to.

_ Damn this bullet. It’s been six weeks. I should be better by now. _

“It’s not the first place I’ve blown up,” Mist said. She remained standing by the doorway, posture far from relaxed. “It  _ is  _ the first place I’ve gotten hero worship for blowing up, though. It’s... weird.”

“In a good way, I hope?”

Mist shrugged. “In a  _ way.  _ I mean… nearly all of the dragonelles are older than me, and they’re looking at me like  _ I’m  _ the one who’s supposed to be respected. It’s... a lot to live up to.” She sighed. “I don’t know how Cobalt does it.”

Ember nodded an agreement. 

“I didn’t get to tell you this last night, but I’m really glad that you’re alive, Mist,” she said. 

Mist swallowed and looked at Dante, trepidation flashing behind her eyes and lingering far longer than it should have, as if it were  _ her  _ life and future that was about to be destroyed. She tucked a strand of hair behind her hair and gave Ember a thumbs-up in response, which make Ember laugh a little.

“I’m glad that I’m alive, too,” she said. There was a pause. “So, there’s a meeting with Riley and Wes and Jade downstairs.”

“Wes is awake?” Ember asked. “He was out cold two hours ago.”

Mist snorted. “He’s not happy about it, but yeah. You don’t have to come if you’d prefer to spend more time with your brother, but I don’t want to keep them waiting. There’s some… information that came to light in the lab that people should know about. Nothing disastrous. We don’t need to be preparing for another attack.” Her eyes met Dante’s again. “But it’s something that people should know sooner rather than later.”

Dante couldn’t tell who she wanted to protect: herself or him.

_ Or Ember. _

Ember went still beside him.

“Go with her, Ember,” Dante whispered. “I’ll be fine.”

At least he wouldn’t have to see her when she figured it out.


	2. Ember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I am back, with another 2.5k words of a moral crisis. This time, in Ember's perspective.

This was concerning, to say the least.

Mist didn’t share any words as they went down to the lower floors. A few dragonelles were still asleep, but most were talking among themselves quietly. Nettle gave her a wave as she passed, and Kain ducked back into the kitchen when he saw her. Their brief conversation hadn’t really changed anything between them— he had still tried to fistfight Garret, and she had still lead him into a battle that left him mutilated. They had to stay civil for the alliance and for Dante’s sake. They’d leave it at that.

“What’s so important that we have to call a secret meeting?” Riley asked as soon as Mist closed the door behind her and Ember. He looked more well-rested than he had in the past two months, but that was overshadowed by worry. Garret, Ember noticed, was not in the room.

“In the lab, some information came to light,” Mist said. “Nothing that would put us in immediate danger, or I would have told you yesterday, but…” she paused and looked at Ember, obviously unsure of how to continue. Ember felt the nervous tangle in her chest contract. If Mist was afraid to say it outright, then it had to be bad. And if she was looking  _ Ember  _ for support… was it about Dante? Was something wrong with him? Did he do something to compromise the mission?

“Wait? how did you get this information?” Riley asked. “It was supposed to be an in-and-out mission, no breaking into databases or interrogating anyone.”

“Lilith was talking about it to Dante before she tried to kill him. Granted, I’d take Lilith’s word with a grain of salt, but in this case I’m inclined to believe her.” Mist said. “Dante… uh… all of us know that he made some less-than-kind decisions while he was in Talon, just like I’ve made, and Riley’s made, and…”

“Oh, god,” Wes muttered. “What did the blighter do now?”

Mist swallowed and looked at Ember again, brow crinkled and lips pursed. Ember felt a pang. Mist didn’t look like  _ Mist _ . She looked like Ava, back when they first met in Vegas. The insecure hatchling who was trying to hold it together for her friend’s sake.

“He… was directly involved in the night of Fang and Fire.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “He led the attack on the Western Chapterhouse.”

There was a thick silence. Ember managed numbly acknowledge that she really shouldn’t have been surprised. Dante had killed an entire trailer town. Leading an attack on one of the Chapterhouses wasn’t a far stretch away from that. But that would mean that… it was Dante who killed Remy, and it was Dante that killed the other four hatchlings, and it was  _ Dante  _ that killed twenty-one soldiers.

“Oh,” Riley managed to make out. His face was drawn in pain, jaw clenching and unclenching. Wes looked at him, anger and concern warring in his expression, limbs rigid.

Ember didn’t know what she was feeling. She wasn’t sure if she was feeling  _ anything.  _ Her brother had killed five hatchlings. Her brother had renounced Talon. Her brother had killed five hatchlings, and he hadn’t  _ told  _ them. He hadn’t told  _ her.  _

_ Dante, you… fucking idiot. _

“And  _ why  _ didn’t you tell me yesterday?” Riley asked. His voice was strained, as if he was about to either start screaming or crying, or maybe both.

Mist swallowed and crossed her arms. “I… I wanted to process it myself, first. And yesterday hard enough as it was, I didn’t want to go through this conversation right after blowing up a building.” She paused. “He  _ did  _ blow up a building for you.”

“That doesn’t— he—” Riley took a breath. “What am I going to tell my hatchlings? He killed five of their friends. He  _ mutilated  _ Kain and Sage. And he—” Riley shook his head. “And the Order, too, our alliance is fragile enough…”

Ember’s breath caught. Their alliance wouldn’t be enough to protect him, if they found out. Either they’d have to hand him over to be executed, or they’d break the peace to murder him. And no matter how many times he screwed up and how pissed she got with him, Dante was still her brother. She couldn’t sit by and watch him be executed.

“The Order doesn’t need to know,” Mist interrupted. She looked almost desperate. “Not yet, at least. I  _ have  _ put thought into that.” She took a breath. “I’m not the only person who heard about the news.”

Ember furrowed her brow before Mist’s words clicked in her head.

“Tristan heard,” Ember said. Mist nodded. “And he still chose to fight Lilith for him?”

“I was just as surprised as you were,” Mist said. “I was fully expecting to be carrying out your brother’s body after Lilith was done with him.” 

Ember cringed, and Mist winced. 

“Sorry. But I think that it… takes that part of the situation out of our hands, for now. Tristan was the Order representative on this mission. Assuming that he wakes up and remembers what happened, the decision to tell the Order should be on him.”

“Well that’s bloody fantastic,” Wes growled, sounding scarily draconic for a moment. “I think the real question is what we’re going to tell the kids that he nearly murdered. And what we’re going to do with  _ him. _ ”

“Wes—”

“ _ What  _ Ember?” Wes snapped. “What can you say to defend him? Go ahead, I’d  _ love  _ for you to rationalize it.”

Ember looked away. She could only guess what Wes was thinking. He had made the first decision to save Dante’s life. Other than Ember, he was the most likely person to believe in his shift in allegiance. But he had  _ also  _ been the one to treat all of the other hatchlings after the Night of Fang and Fire. Or fail to treat, in some cases.

_ God, it was Dante that did that. _

Ember didn’t know if she was angry at him. Scratch that— she was  _ definitely  _ angry at him. Her idiot brother who hadn’t been able to see that Talon was rotten from the inside out until he got himself  _ shot.  _ He was supposed to be the smart one. He was supposed to be the one that thought things through. How the  _ hell  _ had he rationalized any of this?

How the hell had it come to this, in the first place?

She supposed that there was still some part of her that saw him as the Dante who she had grown up with, rather than the Dante that had sold his soul. He said that he wanted to get it back, and she  _ believed  _ him, but the fact was that he had still given it away to Talon, and he had done it willingly.

“Whatever you decide on, I don’t want him killed, and I want to be the one break the news to him,” Ember whispered. “But I… I need to go. I’ll be in the medical tent when you figure out what the hell all of this is going to mean.”

She was sure that Jade called after her, but Ember didn’t turn back. Her brother, the fucking  _ idiot.  _ She wasn’t supposed to be surprised by anything that he did, at this point. She had always been prepared to forgive him for what he did in Talon, because she  _ thought  _ that she would’ve done worse if she had stayed. 

Did he even feel  _ guilty  _ when he did it?

Ember passed Nettle and two of Dante’s friends— Hamsah and Astatine, if she remembered correctly— on her way out. Nettle gave her a wave and Hamsah nodded, but Ember barely acknowledged them. She wanted to find Garret. She knew that she couldn’t tell him what happened. Garret was serving as a liason, so it would be better if he didn’t have to keep secrets. But she couldn’t stay in that room as everyone talked about what they were going to do to her brother.

_ Stupid, idiot, traitor brother. How many chances do I have to give you before you stop doing shit like this? _

The infirmary tent was small— four beds, all sectioned off by translucent tarps— and smelled of both soil and antiseptic. Ember pushed back the curtain and walked up behind Garret, whose eyes flitted towards her and then back to Tristan.

Tristan, who knew that Dante had killed twenty-one soldiers from the Western Chapterhouse, and was going to make the final decision on if to tell the Order. Who Dante had dropped a  _ building  _ on.

Ember would pay everything she had to know what was going through Tristan’s head when he decided to go into a fight that he couldn’t dream of winning. 

“He looks… better,” Ember said into the silence, for lack of anything else to say. His skin was still a cold grey, and he had bandages wrapped around both his head and his left eye. When she looked at the hand that Garret held, she could see bandages and a splint around it as well. But he wasn’t bleeding everywhere, and there wasn’t a tube down his throat or his stomach, so it was at least an improvement from his last coma.

“Dr. Grace is hopeful. He’s still in shock, but she said that it isn’t effecting his brain. Hopefully. Kind of hard to tell without the usual equipment,” Garret said. “He really  _ is  _ lucky, you know. A few millimeters to the left and it would’ve severed his optic nerve. A half-centimeter up and he would be dead. Must’ve been a hell of a fight.” 

Ember nodded. She remembered her spars with Lilith, how she moved too quickly for Ember to see or comprehend. She knew in her instincts that it had been a  _ quick  _ fight. It was only by sheer luck that Tristan hadn’t been dead before he hit the floor.

Garret gave a quiet sigh. “It’s so  _ creepy _ to see him like this. He usually— he doesn’t sleep on his back. Even when he’s stuck in medbay overnight. It’s unnatural to have him so… so...”

“Hey… he’s going to wake up,” Ember reassured. “You said that he was moving. That’s a really good sign. And whatever damage he’s taken, he’ll be able to work through it. He’s good at that.” She squeezed his shoulder. “And he’ll have you, and Martin, and all of his other friends to lean on until he’s recovered. And I’ll be there, too, if he wants me.”

_ I guess that the emotional attachment does go both ways.  _

“I’m here for you, too,” Ember whispered. There was a thick silence between them, interrupted only by the steady heart monitor. 

Tristan had nearly died for her brother, and she couldn’t for the  _ life  _ of her figure out why. He didn’t know Dante, other than the times she talked about him. Which, in all fairness, was often. Tristan was inquisitive, and Ember was stressed, so that’s where their conversations usually headed. But that didn’t mean that she had expected him to go up against Lilith to try to buy him time. Especially if he knew that… that…

Her only brother had nearly killed everyone during the Night of Fang and Fire. That was on Dante. It was both within Tristan’s  _ and  _ Mist’s rights to leave him to die.

“You know, I don’t blame you for what happened,” Garret said. Ember tensed. “Tristan told me that you asked him to protect Dante. He told me… that if it came down to him or Dante, then he fully intended to— to make the sacrifice. Because he had a lot to make up for, and also because he trusted that you’d do the same if it came down to you or me.” He sighed and smoothed back Tristan’s hair. “I know perfectly well that it was Tristan’s choice.”

“Garret…” Ember didn’t know what she could say.

“It’s okay,” Garret said. “You’re right. He’ll be up pretty soon, and he’ll recover. And he’ll remind us both that it was his choice and we’re not allowed to feel guilty or resentful about his choice.”

Ember’s lips twitched. Garret brought Tristan’s hand up to his lips and kissed his knuckles, bruised and scabbed over. Ember was faintly impressed that he had managed to punch Lilith before he was taken down.

“How’s Dante holding up?” Garret asked. “First mission, and all. It’s hard for everyone.”

Ember winced, mind going back to the conversation that she had excused herself from. As long as they didn’t kill him or banish him, she would be able to accept it. It was all that she could ask for. 

Her brother had killed five hatchlings and twenty-one soldiers. He had killed those forty-two people in the trailer town. No getting around it. Whatever Riley, Wes, Mist, and Jade decided would be just. She had to trust them.

“He’s… doing as well as you’d expect. He woke up late, and he can’t stand for the next few hours, but he didn’t take any permanent damage. He’s starting to get pissed at the bullet in his spine. Even more so than usual.”

“I can imagine,” Garret replied. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually. I’m sure that between Wes and Doctor Grace, they might be able to go to the St. George safehouse and get it out. Dante’s going to be an asset. It’ll be good to have him whole.”

Ember bit her lip. Maybe yesterday that would’ve worked. But Wes wasn’t going to be keen on granting Dante any favors, and it wasn’t fair to have the Order give him help before they knew what he had done.

“Maybe,” Ember said. “I don’t know if he’d be up for that anytime soon. He… he…”

There was a rustle of the curtain. 

“Ember,” Jade said, voice soft and solemn. “Could I see you?”

Ember nodded. She gave Garret a tight hug before she left, letting Jade lead her back to the main farmhouse. They sat on the porch together, away from the other hatchling’s prying ears and questions. Ember bit the inside of her cheek.

“He’s not going to be killed, and he’s not going to be exiled,” Jade said. Ember took a shaking breath. “We have to tell the other hatchlings, though. It’s not the dragonelles business, but it is the original underground’s right to know.” Ember nodded, even though that cold tangle in her chest only got colder. It seemed everpresent, these days. “For Dante’s safety, and their peace of mind, he’ll be kept in the cellar until everyone can make peace with what he’s done. You’ll be allowed to visit him as you please, and no damage will come to him.”

_ Other than being kept in a cellar for an indefinite amount of time.  _ Ember kept that thought to herself. As much as Dante liked to be the refined and controlled sibling, he got just as claustrophobic and antsy as she did when kept in one room or building for too long. He’d usually study outside when he was younger, and went on just as many post-class runs as she did to burn off nervous energy. Being locked in one room with nothing to do would have him clawing at the walls in a matter of days.

But this wasn’t just the Dante who she had grown up with. This was the person who was responsible for the death of five of Riley’s hatchlings. Five of her  _ friends,  _ if she had been given the time to know them. Riley was still grieving for them. That was on Dante, whether she wanted it to be or not. It was a mercy that they  _ weren’t  _ exiling him or handing him over to the Order to be killed.

“You said that you wanted to be the one to tell him,” Jade said. “Is this still the case?”

Ember pulled at a lock of hair and nodded, straightening. “He deserves to hear it from me.” She swallowed and let out a breath. “And I deserve answers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked it and want faster, more enthusiastic updates, please drop a review/kudos or bookmark the work! I live for validation, it helps motivate me to finish editing/writing the next segment, you know the drill.


	3. Dante

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back, and I'm still on time! Thank you to the five people who have read this story, and please enjoy the journey of Dante facing Karma for his life choices.

Waiting for Ember to come back was insufferable. Dante was starting to understand why she was so impatient.

He ground his teeth hard and tried to push himself from his elbows to his hands, only to collapse back onto his cot. His back was burning even worse than when he had woken up, and he still couldn’t feel anything other than indistinct pain were his legs were supposed to be. But he could breathe, and he could move his arms fairly well, so he’d be damned if he stayed in this cot while awaiting his sentence.

Part of him knew that being able to walk wouldn’t change anything, and what he was really trying to do was distract himself from the problem at hand. But if he could walk, then he could do _something_ to improve his situation. Maybe. Dante pushed himself onto his elbows again. If he focused, he could _probably_ move his legs. Just because he couldn’t feel them very well didn’t mean that they were completely useless.

 _This… this is hopeless._ Dante let himself fall onto his back with a huff of air, ignoring the pain that it caused. It was borderline pathetic— he knew perfectly well that he couldn’t move after the previous day’s actions. He wasn’t allowed to walk without a back brace, anyway. He trusted that Wes knew what he was talking about when he set that rule.

_Huh. I really do trust that human._

Dante didn’t think that he’d be surprised by the realization. Wes had saved his life six weeks ago, and made sure that he could walk. At least, walk _most_ of the time. But the idea of trusting a human— _any_ human— still felt unfamiliar to him. Humans were weak, easily manipulated, and too short-lived to make a real difference. He had barely trusted his human bodyguards back in Talon.

Dante sighed, a cold pit settling in his chest, just like it always did when he thought about his bodyguards. He had been their superior, and he hadn’t given them too much thought at the time, but they had been nice. It was good to see familiar faces every day that weren’t from board meetings or vessel reports. And he didn’t even know which one of them was alive.

He hoped that, wherever the surviving one was, he was okay. A futile hope, but a hope nonetheless.

The door opened.

Dante cringed before he could even see who it was, body going rigid with the expectation of screaming and accusations that were entirely true. He still wasn’t sure what to expect. They couldn’t exile him until he could walk, probably, and Mist said that she wouldn’t tell the Order, so that meant that he’d live. But he wasn’t about to get off consequence free, either. He had killed Cobalt’s hatchlings. And he hadn’t _told_ anyone.

He didn’t want the underground to hate him.

“Hey, Dante,” Ember said. Her voice was closed off, but it wasn’t angry, like it had been in Vegas. Dante swallowed. “Do you want to tell me anything?”

“I think that Mist has already—”

“I’d like to hear it from you.”

There was a thick silence between them, interrupted by the muffled sound of activity on the floor below them. Dante stared up at the ceiling that he had grown all-too familiar with, feeling his breath in his throat and lungs.

“I helped with the attack on the Western Chapterhouse,” he said. He heard it softly, as if it wasn’t really _him_ who has talking. “I… I volunteered for that branch specifically. Because I was pissed at Garret and knew the best way to hurt him from my position. I didn’t think that the underground would show up, but I didn’t call off the attack when they did.” The words were physically painful, like poison in the air. “And I didn’t tell anyone because I was scared, and then I was ashamed. Which was selfish of me. You… _everyone_ deserved to know.”

“We did,” Ember agreed shortly. “You’re an idiot, you know that, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Ember said. She still wasn’t in his field of vision, and Dante didn’t particularly want her to be, because she sounded tired and disappointed. He didn’t want to see that reflected in her face.

“Do you think you can walk?” Ember asked.

“Not really.” Dante’s voice stayed level, and he kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He had faced down the Elder Wyrm without flinching. He could get through this conversation without crying, or asking for mercy on his sentence.

“You you think you can walk if I support you?”

“Where are we going?”

“Downstairs. To the cellar.”

Dante cringed as Ember finally walked up beside him and made him sit upright. She slung his arm around her shoulders to force him to his feet. Dante’s legs collapsed the moment he tried to put weight on them, pain ricocheting from his legs and up through his back. He sucked in a sharp breath and bit down on a scream. It _burnt._ It ached. He couldn’t find a word in English or Draconic to encompass what he was feeling. He managed to find enough control to get his balance as Ember put her other arm around his waist, even though every step was borderline torture. He still couldn’t quite control his legs, and they dragged on the ground when he tried to move them.

“How long?” he ground out as they reached the doorframe, Ember half helping him walk, half dragging him.

“We don’t know. Until the other hatchlings and Riley think they can see you without wanting to kill you. And until Tristan wakes up and decides what to tell the Order,” Ember said. Dante clenched his jaw hard. He was _not_ going to start screaming. He wasn’t going to start crying, either. He didn’t know if the physical pain or the emotional toll of the conversation was worse. “I’ll talk to him and try to make sure that, whatever he tells the Order, it won’t… they won’t kill you. I won’t let them kill you. Even if you have to stay in the cellar for the rest of your life.”

Dante didn’t respond to that. He didn’t want to die, but he didn’t want to be locked in one room for any period of time. It was a gentle punishment, compared to what would’ve happened in Talon. He knew that. If he had killed five Talon Agents for the rogues, the best case scenario would be his immediate execution. But he had just gotten permission to go outside unsupervised. He had become an official part of the underground. He had _wanted_ that.

They reached the staircase and slowly managed their way down, Dante’s feet mostly dragging on the ground because he couldn’t support them himself. No one stopped them as they turned down the hallway. Probably for the best.

“Am I going to have to talk to Cobalt?”

“I don’t think so. Not now, anyway,” Ember said. “Right now you’re injured, and he wants to shoot you, so it would end really badly.”

She opened a door at the end of the hallway, which lead down into a dark room that Dante couldn’t see properly. The stairs were old and creaky, and just as difficult to get down as the first set of stairs. Which meant that, even if Dante _did_ want to escape, it would be near impossible for a few days. Ember was starting to breathe heavily with the effort of moving him, too.

They reached the landing, and Ember let him sit down against the wall before she flicked the lights on. It was a small room, with a stone floor, brick walls and visible wiring on the ceiling. There was one other door that Dante could see led to a bathroom that probably hadn’t been remodeled since the house was built. There was a washing machine in the corner that had a load in and some shelves against the wall, but those were the only decorations.

Ember wrinkled her nose. “Guess I’m in charge of laundry, now. That sucks.” She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ll get your cot and blankets and stuff. It’s cold as fuck down here, and Wes would kill me if I didn’t bring your cot down, no matter what you’ve done. He doesn’t need to deal with any more medical problems.” She turned to go back upstairs, and Dante’s breath caught in his throat.

“So that’s it?” he asked before he could stop himself.

Ember turned back to him, a furrow in her brow. She cocked her head to the side.

“You’re… you’re not going to talk about how stupid I was, or yell at me for— for killing your friends and then keeping secrets, or anything? You’re just going to leave it at this?”

Ember looked away.

“I need to get your stuff,” she whispered. Then she turned and walked back up the stairs, eyes solidly fixed on the ground.

The door shut with a click.

 

* * *

 

 

Dante spent his first day in the cellar trying to sleep. It was colder than he was used to— he blamed it on his childhood in the New Mexico desert— and the air was damp, but at least his cot was raised off the ground. Ember had put it in the corner so he could sit up a bit more easily, but he wasn’t interested in being upright. He was just tired.

Ember _did_ visit him around dinner, bringing down two plates of food and making sure that he ate the entire thing. She told him that Cobalt had told the underground what had happened. Not the dragonelles, because they hadn’t been involved, but the twelve who had fought. She said that Astatine wanted to kill him, and Kain had decided to go on a walk that he had yet to return from. Hamsah had locked himself in his room.

So maybe it was best that he was down here.

 

* * *

 

 

When Dante woke up, his back still hurt, but he could feel and move his legs, so that was a good thing. He couldn’t tell what time it was. Probably mid-morning. He managed to get out of bed and limp heavily around the basement, inspecting the shelves out of boredom. The dust patterns told him that they recently had _something_ on them, but it had recently been moved. Probably food, if he had to guess. He would’ve paced, just to give himself something to do, but the simple act of crossing the room still hurt, and he didn’t want to push his luck.

Ember came down three times that day to share meals with him, but she kept their conversation minimal. They didn’t talk about the underground, or the Night of Fang and Fire. She asked after how he was recovering, and told him that they hadn’t caught word of any retaliation from Talon, and left it at that.

She also brought down a clock, so he could see the minutes pass.

 

* * *

 

Dante was going to start clawing at the walls.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, Dante! I have good news!” Ember came down the stairs and handed him a hot pocket. Dante sighed and took a grudging bite. The entire situation that he was in reminded him of six weeks ago— being confined to a room 24/7, only Ember for company, his diet consisting mostly of hot pockets. If he never saw a hot pocket again in his life, he’d be happy.

“Tristan woke up a few hours ago.”

Dante nearly choked.

“ _What?_ ”

“Yeah! Dr. Grace was starting to get worried, actually, because she didn’t think he was going to be in a coma for more than twenty-four hours. He woke up around 4:00 in the morning, and he recognized Garret,” she said. Dante took a breath, feeling his shoulders relax. “Garret said that he’s still going to be kept in the infirmary until tomorrow morning, just to make sure that he doesn’t overstrain himself, and he’s been denied visitors until then. But he’s up.”

“That’s great,” Dante said, and he meant it. He hadn’t wanted that soldier to die, and he hadn’t been able to tell if the lack of news was because of Ember’s forgetfulness or because there hadn’t been any changes.

But waking up was only the first step towards any sort of recovery. He knew that better than most.

“How… do you know how is head is?” he asked. Ember cringed. “That bad?”

“He… he could recognize Garret, and he could talk pretty well. He apparently asked a lot of questions when he woke up,” Ember said carefully. That sounded like good news, but Dante could tell that she was trying to figure out what else to say. “But he can’t understand much. Garret texted me about it. He didn’t answer any of the questions, and kept asking Dr. Grace to repeat herself. Apparently, the place he was hit is important for language comprehension.” she pursed her lips. “But they’re still hoping for the best. A lot of people are disoriented when they come out of comas, and most of them improve. He’s sleeping, last time Garret texted me. And it’s actually sleep, not…”

Dante nodded. That wasn’t as bad as it could be. He was _conscious,_ at least, and he could communicate, even if he couldn’t understand what was being said back to him.

“Do you know if he remembers the mission?” Dante asked softly. He _didn’t_ mention Lilith, or the secret he had tried to keep, or what could happen if the Order found out, but Ember knew the real questions he was asking.

“No. I only know what Garret’s told me. The mission didn’t come up.”

Dante picked his hot pocket back up and took a few bites in an attempt to make the silence between them less tense. It had been four days, and he could tell that he wasn’t any closer to getting out of the basement. Ember wouldn’t even talk to him about the Night of Fang and Fire.

_Well, I have to start somewhere._

“Ember, I…” Dante started. Ember looked back at him. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner. You deserved to hear it from me instead of Mist, and… _everyone_ in the underground deserved to know what I had done before they decided to help me recover and— and offer me a second chance. And I know there’s nothing that I can do to make it better for them except to keep out of sight, and that an apology won’t fix anything, but it needs to be out there. Even if you’re the only person who hears it.”

Ember looked back towards the stairs, obviously considering whether or not to leave. Dante held his breath and waited. He needed to get this conversation in the open. They couldn’t ignore it forever.

“In my defense, if I hadn’t led the attack, someone else would’ve just taken my place. Which also doesn’t help, and doesn’t change the fact that it was my choice to try to destroy that Chapterhouse,” Dante continued, just to fill the silence. “I honestly still have no idea why St. Anthony did what he did when he had every right to leave me to die.”

“Tristan has done more impulsive things than that. He snuck Garret into an Order assembly and ended up killing the Patriarch. This is a small blip in the bullshit radar.”

Dante cracked a smile, and reminded himself that he needed to make an effort to get to know the soldier properly. It was the least he could do.

“But you’re right about… all of that. There isn’t anything that you can do to make it better. And it also would’ve have changed anything if you hadn’t been the one to lead the attack,” Ember said. She was silent for a moment, staring at nothing in particular. “I guess that there’s no point in pretending that it didn’t happen, huh?”

“Not really.”

Ember gave a loud sigh and ruffled his hair, which Dante allowed without complaint. It had grown past his ears, and it was long enough to tangle in her hands.

“What am I going to do with you, tweedledum?” Ember asked.

Dante shook his head. “I have no fucking clue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. There were scenes that I really wanted to include, and obviously couldn't due to the perspective this was in. Don't be sad that I couldn't include Tristan's rise from his coma. Ember nor Dante were there for that. (At least he's awake, right?)
> 
> Anyway, PLEASE review, I have not gotten a single review since I started posting this, and I'd really like to hear what all y'all think. Thirty seconds of your time would make my day and give the incentive to start part four of this series!


	4. Dante

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned with the LAST installment of this story. I hope that you all enjoy, and it's a satisfactory end to this portion of the series. Enjoy, and please drop a review if you feel so inclined.

Over the next week, Dante managed to fall into a rhythm. It was a less favorable rhythm than what he had in the underground, with friends and things to occupy himself with, but it was a rhythm nonetheless. He woke up around 8:30 every day and stayed in bed until Ember came down around nine. She’d share news that he missed out on, exchange a load of laundry, and go back upstairs. He’d occupy his time with whatever he could— Ember gave him a deck of cards, and he was slowly mastering the art of solitaire. He paced his room and tried to smooth out his limp to no avail. He tried meditation and reflection, like Jade taught him. Ember would come down for lunch and get her load of laundry. Dante would continue to try to keep himself from climbing the walls. Ember would come down for dinner. Dante would spend the rest of the evening trying to tire himself out so he could go to bed earlier. 

Walking  _ was  _ getting easier. He still had a limp, and he was fairly certain that it would never quite go away, but movement wasn’t as stiff as or as painful as it used to be. He could be on his feet for longer before he had to sit down. He didn’t feel like he was breaking apart by the end of the day.

Still, his prison sentence wasn’t anywhere near over, by the sounds of it. Ember told him that some of the hatchlings had mustered up a semblance of forgiveness— Sage, who had nearly died because of him, had decided that what was done was done, and that it wasn’t the time to settle grudges. Nettle had apparently told Ember that, while she wanted to set him on fire, it was useless to keep him locked in the basement, unable to make up for what he had done. Even Riley had managed to get over the worst of his anger, because Dante had gone through with the mission to destroy the vessel labs.

Kain wasn’t as forgiving, according to Ember. It was understandable. To Nettle, Sage, and everyone else, he was an acquaintance at best. But for it friends, it was a personal betrayal. Ember had tried to talk to all of them individually, for both theirs and Dante’s sake. Apparently, Kain had cursed both him and Ember out pretty colorfully, right before he apologized and nearly started crying. Astatine was glad to see him rot in the basement. Ember still hadn’t said anything about Hamsah.

The fact that he had failed his only friends so spectacularly hurt more than the boredom of confinement.

Twelve days into his sentence, the door opened at 4:00— two hours before dinner usually was. Dante paused in his game of solitaire, listening to the voices at the top, faintly wondering if Kain or Astatine had managed to break the padlock and was coming to punch him in the face. It wouldn’t surprise him.

“Dante, you have a visitor,” Ember called from the top of the stairs. Dante furrowed his brow and put his cards away.

“I’m allowed visitors?”

“Yeah, smartass,” Ember said. Her voice softened considerably, and her words also became pronounced. “Do you need help?”

“I was stabbed in the head, Ember. Not the knee,” Another voice snorted. Dante stiffened. “You’re as bad as Garret.” 

Dante scrambled to his feet. The voice was so accented that Dante could barely recognize it as Tristan St. Anthony’s, but there was no mistaking him when the soldier walked down the stairs, gait stumbling and uneven, his hand clenching the banister. Ember trailed behind him anxiously.

Tristan looked… better. His skin was back to a warm brown, and his eyes, although squinted against the lights, seemed to be alert. Dante could still see a raised scar on his temple and bandages wrapped around his right hand, but he was upright, aware, and he wasn’t bleeding everywhere, like he had been when Dante last saw him.

“Dante,” Tristan greeted. “It’s good to see that you’re okay. Ember says that you’re the one that got me out after the— the—” Tristan motioned to his head. “So, thanks. I wasn’t expecting to actually live through that.”

Dante managed not to cringe at the statement. 

He had several questions. If Tristan remembered the fight with Lilith. If he was going to tell the Order. Why the  _ hell  _ he had jumped into a fight that he couldn’t hope to win after learning what Dante had done.

“Are you okay?” Dante asked. First things first.

Tristan furrowed his brow, cocking his head slightly to the side. After a moment, something flashed in his eyes and he nodded, walking over to the wall nearest to him. His gait was still shaky, and he couldn’t move in quite a straight line. He sat down against the wall, hands pressed flat against the floor as if he needed to be further grounded.

“I’m up and functioning,” he responded. “Dizzy and tired, but overall there wasn’t too much damage done.”

Ember gave a cough, and Tristan glared at her. Then his eyes focused back on Dante.

“And you appear to have gotten out without any injury, too, so I got my job done,” he said, mustering up a smile. “Mist spoke to me yesterday, and she seemed like she was okay. Is she actually…”

“Mist is fine. She was the one to kill Lilith, actually, before Lilith could kill me, and she… she…” Dante fell silent. Tristan St. Anthony was an open book— his arms were crossed, his eyebrows were furrowed, and his mouth was pursed into a grimace. He was frustrated. But it wasn’t pointed at Dante— one of his knees was drawn to his chest, and he wasn’t making eye contact.

He was angry with himself.

Dante took a breath. When he spoke, he was careful to pronounce his words clearly, the way Ember had been speaking with him at the top of the stairs. “Can you understand me?”

Tristan looked away, the crease still remaining in his brow. “Not really. I can understand enough to scrape by, when people speak slowly. And clearly. And…” His jaw clenched, but he shook himself and relaxed. “It’s okay. I’m alive, I’m walking, and this is the only major symptom. It could be worse.”

Dante nodded. “I’m glad that you’re alive.”

“Thanks, Hill,” Tristan smiled briefly. He closed his eyes tightly against the light and let out a small groan, rubbing at his temple. “I… I guess that we need to discuss what happened in the lab, though.” 

Dante felt his heart stutter and his body go cold. He saw Ember stiffen as well, her eyes solidly fixed on Tristan.

The Order would kill him, if they knew what he had done. Either through execution or destroying the alliance to get to him, he would die.

“Before you start talking, I’d like to get all of my words out in one go, because conversations are… not really working at the moment. Okay? Okay,” Tristan said. He took a breath. “I remember everything up until the dragon stabbed me. There are a few things afterwards, but I don’t really understand them, or know if they’re actually real,” Tristan continued. “But I know that you led the attack on my chapterhouse. You… I nearly died that night, and I’m still technically in recovery. A lot of my friends  _ did  _ die.” His fingers twitched— the ones on his bandaged hand, that didn’t seem to be working like it was supposed to. 

Ember sat down beside Dante on the cot and laced her fingers with his, like when they were younger and facing a joint reprimanding. It made his shoulders relax a bit. He squeezed her hand.

“I spoke with Mist as well. Or, tried my best. She just said that the Order didn’t know, yet, and it was my decision to tell them,” he continued. He looked at the both of them, eyes lingering on Ember more than him. “I’ve thought about it over the past few days. I think they’d want to know. They deserve to.”

“Tristan…” Ember started. Dante wondered exactly what Ember was willing to offer to keep the secret safe.

“But I’m not going to tell them,” Tristan whispered.

If Dante had received any less training, his jaw would’ve dropped. He felt weak and shaky all the sudden as something rushed out of him, replaced by sheer relief. He wasn’t going to be killed. The Order wouldn’t know about the Night of Fang and Fire. That secret would stay contained. He’d get to  _ live. _

“Why?” Dante breathed.

Tristan’s eyebrows furrowed, and pain flashed across his face. “Sorry, what? I can’t really…”

“Um… Thank you. Thank you,” Dante amended. Ember’s hand was still clenched around his. When he looked at her, he could tell that she was just as shocked as he was. His heart was still beating somewhere in his throat. “But… I don’t understand why you’d do that for me.”

Tristan’s jaw clenched and unclenched. 

“Still not getting very much,” he said, voice clipped. He swore to himself softly and rubbed at the scar on his temple. “Sorry. My ears are ringing. Can’t understand  _ shit. _ ” Tristan took a breath and let it out slowly. “Just… talk like I don’t speak English?”

Dante bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t have any reason to feel guilty. He hadn’t asked Tristan St. Anthony to defend him. He hadn’t been the one to stab him. And yet, the truth of the fact was that Tristan St. Anthony was suffering because he had tried to buy Dante enough time to escape.

“Thank you.” The words were signed in ASL— Dante didn’t know any more than a few phrases that most Americans knew, but it got the message across. Tristan nodded, which meant that he understood. They lapsed into a stiff silence. 

“Okay, I’ve thought through this conversation before. I prepared for what would happen if I couldn’t understand you, and I’ve guessed some of the questions that you’d ask. I can just go through those,” Tristan muttered and raked a hand through his hair. “It’s…  _ fuck,  _ everything’s so fuzzy.”

Dante cringed, and he saw Ember reach out to him. He wanted to leave. It didn’t feel like his place to see St. Anthony in any sort of vulnerable state— Tristan had real friends that would handle the situation better. Hell,  _ Ember  _ would be able to handle the situation if she were alone. Dante didn’t know the soldier. He had taught him how to shoot and then nearly died. This wasn’t right.

And he couldn’t even use his words to make it better. Even if Tristan could understand them, they’d fall flat.

Tristan took a breath and squeezed his eyes shut. When they opened, he appeared marginally calmer. That wasn’t saying much. “My decision in the lab was a knee-jerk reaction, and I know that it makes  _ no  _ sense. Honestly, I still don’t know exactly what I was thinking.” he glanced at Dante, and then at Ember. “But what I  _ do  _ know is that I made a promise to your sister to get you out alive. I do try to honor my promises, especially when I know that Ember kept my best friend alive for several months without my help, which is a  _ feat. _ It was my turn to repay the favor.” He paused, eyes still on Ember instead of him.

Dante blinked.

It wasn’t about him in the slightest.

“And… I know the Order. Martin is doing his best to honor the truce, but you killed twenty-one of his soldiers. I  _ might  _ be able to stop him from calling for an execution, but the moment anyone from the Eastern Chapterhouse or the wrong person from my Chapterhouse knew, you’d be dead. And the fact is, it’s still my job to keep you alive. I made a deal, and I intend to honor it. If that means lying to the Order to make sure you don’t get killed, then… that’s what I’ll do. Even though it means lying to  _ everyone  _ who I respect, and possibly getting myself banished from the Order the moment this crisis is over,” Tristan continued. He ran a hand over his face and rubbed at his temple again. His eyes finally met Dante’s, slightly scrutinizing. 

There was a long pause.

“I’m just now realizing that I’ve been put in  _ two  _ comas because of you.  _ God,  _ I regret every decision that led me to be friends with Ember.”

“Aw, you’re my friend?” Ember said. Her voice was still slower than usual and over-pronounced, but it had more of a teasing jibe in it as well. 

Tristan rolled his eyes and gave a thumbs-up with his good hand. “Do you have any more questions that I didn’t answer? Not that I’m not enjoying this conversation, but… I’m  _ very  _ tired.”

Ember grimaced, and Dante shook his head, even though he  _ did  _ have questions. It didn’t matter. He was going to live. He had time to ask them, once he got out of the basement, and once Tristan St. Anthony had healed. He  _ did  _ look tired as he stood, waving off Ember’s attempts to help him up despite the fact that he stumbled and had to brace himself on the wall. Dante also stood out of courtesy. 

Tristan cocked his head to the side, a slight furrow in his brow as he looked Dante over. Dante stiffened slightly.

“Take this mercy and learn from it, okay? That’s all I ask.”

Dante didn’t know how to reply. In all of his training as a Chameleon, he had learned that if he had an advantage over someone, then he needed to press it and get as much as possible. Even though Tristan had saved his life for Ember’s sake, Dante still owed him a debt. Tristan could still hold his life above his head.

If Dante were still a chameleon, he would scoff.

But he  _ wasn’t.  _

He wasn’t sure what he was, anymore. 

Tristan turned and headed up the stairs before Dante could find the words to reply, with Ember trailing behind him to make sure he didn’t fall. The door shut with a click.

Maybe he didn’t need words, this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there we have it! Tristan's alive, Dante's alive, no one was injured... even if Dante's still locked in a basement. I'm pleased with myself.
> 
> As you can guess, there WILL be a fourth installment. I have the plot, but I have no idea what the name is or when I'll be done with it. If I had to hazard a guess, you probably won't see anything from this series until after the school year ends, because I have finals, and I also have another fanfictions that I want to give you. But, eventually, it WILL get out there. Thanks for sticking around for this long, and I look forward to continuing this journey with you.

**Author's Note:**

> Dante's situation is just really shitty rn.
> 
> Please drop a review/kudos and make my day. You will be my favorite person.


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